


A Stranger To Himself

by IllegalCerebral



Series: CM Bingo 2021 [3]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet Ending, Brain Damage, Criminal Minds Bingo, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Gen, Head Injury, Hospitals, Major Character Injury, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllegalCerebral/pseuds/IllegalCerebral
Summary: He wakes in a hospital with no idea who these people are, how he got there or even his own name.
Relationships: Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid, The BAU Team & Spencer Reid
Series: CM Bingo 2021 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134338
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	A Stranger To Himself

**Author's Note:**

> **I do not give permission for this story to be copied and reposted anywhere.**

There are people around him, red-eyed and shaking from the colossal effort of pretending everything is okay. Even through the pain and the the heavy fog around every though he has, he knows everything is definitely not okay.

He’s in a hospital bed. His sensation of his own body comes and goes but the pain is constant. Worst of all he cannot recall his own name, can’t put names to the parade of faces that pass by his bed. He doesn’t know his birthday or his address. He doesn’t remember where he went to school or what his best friend was called. The tall, serious man talks in a low voice about calling his mother but there is no face to put to that either. He doesn’t know his mother or his father.

A blonde woman pleads with a nurse - he cannot have narcotics, he would refuse them if he were capable. He doesn’t know why she insists but he suspects that it’s something to do with how good he feels whenever he’s given more pain meds; like he can just float away and not worry about anything.

There are endless questions he cannot answer and they go round and round until in circles until he yells at everything just to stop and the chase everyone out of the room. Eventually they give up trying to make him remember and just tell him. It’s a violent bedtime story but each time its told to him it feels like it happened to a stranger.

They were investigating some disappearances (he’s in law enforcement - how strange. That doesn’t feel right), they got a lead on the unsub (what a funny word, they keep explaining what it means but it slips away like water each time) and went too check it out. They were ambushed and he was shot twice in the chest and once in the head (that explained the excruciating pain then).

He should be dead. It was a miracle that he wasn’t by all accounts. No one could understand it, he hadn’t been wearing bullet proof vest at the time and the unsub the bad guy had them at a disadvantage.

“But we saved the last girl he took,” the colourful woman says in what he suspects is supposed to be a reassuring way, eyes full of tears. “She’s going home to her family and it’s because you worked out where we might find him.”

He doesn’t know why but it makes him feel better. He doesn’t know this woman anymore than he he knows himself and yet the idea that she able to go back to people who love her makes the pain a little more bearable.

In many ways he thinks things are harder for the people who visit him than it is for him. They are all so painfully aware of what’s been lost. It seems he is lacking now. The doctors talk about brain damage and cognitive impairment and they act like the world is ending. The blonde woman cries about how he was so smart, so brilliant and know he’s lost that.

“But I’m not dead,” he snaps, not sure where the thick, fiery anger has bubbled up from. His tone is so venomous that she flinches and then looks ashamed.

“Oh Spence, I know it’s just-“

“You should leave,” he mumbles, rearranging his blankets. “You don’t want me like this and I don’t want…” He struggles with the word he needs and just gestures uselessly, swatting her hand away when she reaches for him. She looks utterly defeated as she slinks out the door but he is too exhausted to care.

He hates sitting there like a corpse they are all mourning. He hates that they all want something from him though they claim they just want him to get better. It’s more than that, they need him to be the person he was before but he doesn’t know who that is.

Some of them are better than others. The older man comes in everything other day with a tub of Italian food that he sweet talks one of the nurses into heating up for him.

“This hospital food is worse for you than the bullets,” he says solemnly. It always tastes delicious and the man likes to tell stories as he eats and listens patiently. Some of the stories are about his daughter and grandson and are sweet, there are stories about his grandma which are hilarious and stories about his friends when they were young, travelling around the country in beaten up rental cars solving crimes with nothing but their wits. He likes those stories best.

A younger man comes too and plays him music and fills him in on the office gossip. Even though he doesn’t recognise the names he likes the conspiratorial way he’s told the mundane secrets. Sometimes the colourful woman tags along and he enjoys how the banter with each other though they laughed when he asks whether they are a couple.

The colourful woman knits and the man encourages her and comments. He’s surprised when she tells him that he used to knit too. He can’t image having the dexterity to mimic her movements and creates something as lovely as the rainbow blanket she’s been working on for the weeks he’s been in this bed.

“No see, here’s the scarf you made when we went to the convention,” she says, showing him picture of them both on her phone. They’re smiling widely and are dressed up. The man in the photo doesn’t resemble the person in the mirror with a half shaved head and thick, ragged stitches across his skull, gaunt and sickly.

“It’s an ugly scarf,” he says, unsure of what else he could comment on and he starts as the other man explodes with laughter and the colourful woman looks shocked.

“Ugh no boy wonder that is an accurate replica of the doctor’s scarf. You spent moths on that making sure the colours were exactly right.”

“Huh. Did I make anything else?”

“Um, you made Morgan this one see?” She holds up her phone once more but his eyes are beginning to ache. “For Christmas. Or was it your birthday?”

“Why is it nicer?”

“Because you like me more.”

“Morgan!”

“What! It’s true. Pretty boy took more care over my present than your cosplay. Deal with it Baby Girl.” It’s not a real fight and so he can settle down against the pillows and listen to them squabble playfully as his eyes grow heavier. He only barely registers a soft kiss against his forehead as the colourful woman whispers goodbye.

Time doesn’t really hold much meaning for him but he knows he isn’t making the progress that the doctors or his friends (he’s sure that’s what they are, they’re the only ones who come to see him) would like.

He should feel disappointed, he supposes but it’s not like he can remember who he was before so he feels separated from their grief.

He isn’t an FBI agent anymore but they reassure him that they won’t be finding anyone to fill his place on the team. (Is he supposed to care?)

“Is he going to be like this forever now?” The blonde woman asks the serious man in a whisper she thinks he can’t hear and the serious man has no answer.

A long term plan is formulated and he nods along. Apparently his mother is too unwell to come and visit him and they think that she will be distressed to hear about the accident so for the moment no one has told her. Sadness, guilt and frustration bubbles up at that and he doesn’t know why. He lashes out a lot, even when they’re being kind.

Physical therapy is the next step and then counselling. Everyone is told not to expect miracles, he won’t wake up one day and be how he was but there’s no reason he can’t thrive. They sit in his room and their expressions run the gamut from grieving to hopeful. The blonde woman is hiding her tears.

“Hey pretty boy,” the young man says one day, a box under his arm, “you ever play Go? I don’t think you did. Didn’t stop you knowing a tonne about it but you were always a chess guy. My Dad taught me to play and since we never played chess together I figured you might like to have a go at this. The doctor says playing games and doing puzzles will be good for you.”

He watches in interest as the board is set up and the counters are separated into two piles, white and black.

“We never played before?”

“Nope. But it’s always good to try new things,” his friend teases. 

It feels significant and its hard to explain why. He feels like its a step forward rather than a recovery effort and that makes his throat tighten.

“Show me,” he says.


End file.
